355 THE ANALYST. NOVEMBER, 1878. A CURIOUS CASE OF POIS9KING BY MOULDY BREAD. By ALFRED H. ALLEN, F.C.S. I HAVE recently had the investigation of a very curious case of poisoning at Barnsley, and as the circumstances fortunately allowed of a very complete examination being made, and the case has several features of special interest, the following description may not be without value :- At a cheap eating-house in Barnsley, kept by a Mr.Thresh, the cook made two bread puddings of the scraps of bread left from making toast, sandwiche8, &c. These scraps had been accumulating for some weeks. After soaking the bread over night in cold water, she added milk, sugar, eggs, currfints, and nutmeg, and then baked the puddings in separate ovens. The cook herself, the proprietor of the eating-house, the waiter, and a customer partook of one of the puddings,-distinguished as No.1 5n the evidence. The rest of i t was sent to Thresh's own house, and four of his children partook of it. Of the eight persons who eat of No. 1 pudding, everrone was seized with violent purging, vomiting, and other symptoms of irritant poisoning. Their pulses were very rapid, but none of them had bloody motions.After thirty-six hours, Emma Thresh, a delicate child of three, subject to diarrhea, died, and a week after eating the pudding, Mason, the waiter, also died. He was a very weakly man, given to drink, and was often purged ten and twelve tinies in an afternoon. Hence, his symptoms did not at first excite suspicion, especially as he did not 'vomit till the second day.The other pudding was only eaten by one person, who did not take much, and did not suffer in any way. The remainders of both puddings, the viscera of the two deceased persons, and the rest of the currants, nutmeg, and sugar used in making the puddings, and the spoon used in helping them were all submitted t o me. The medical man who made the postmortem examinations, having suspected arsenic or copper, my attention was first directed to metallic poisons, of which, however, no trace could be detected.The search wau not limited to the sulphuretted hydrogen metals, but zinc, chromillm, and barium were also carefully looked for. I may take this opportunity of saying, that when a starchy or saccharine prcparation like bread pudding is to be examined for metallic poisons, Fresenius' method of destroying organic matter (by treating the substance with hydrochloric acid and potassium chlorate) is very ill adapted for the purpose. A clear yellow liquid is readily obtained, but the colour is much darkened on heating, or on treatment with sodium sulphite, and en prolonged passing of sulphuretted hydrogen yellow or brownish organic matter is thrown down, which contaminates any true metallic sulphide, and causes other incon- venience.A far better plan, in my opinion, is t o exhaust the starchy matters with cold dilute hydrochloric or sulphuric acid, adding alcohol, if necessary, to facilitate filtration. The solution so obtained may be conveniently tcsted for metals, alkaloids, oxaiic acid, &c.The insoluble portion should then be treated with stiong nitric acid and a little potassium356 THE ANALYST. nitrate, evaporated cautiously to dryness, and ignited. Non-volatile metals can then be readily detected in the residue. I n the case of the puddings in question, both thiec method and that of Fresenius’s were employed, with entirely negative results. A search for phosphorus and cantharides was not omitted, and I also made a careful examination for alkaloids in the liquid obtained by treating No. 1 pudding with sulphuric acid and alcohol, but without result.Nor had the extract left on evaporating this liquid any bitter taste, or any poisonous effect on a mouse fed with it. On arriving at this point I was much puzzled, and still more so when I found that No.1 pudding, which had poisoned eight people, did not even purge a six weeks’ old puppy which I fed on it for two whole days. Still the evidence that No. 1 pudding really poisoned the people was sufficiently strong to hang it. At this stage I wrote to several friends t o ask if they could suggest any explanation of the facts. I received in reply a letter from Dr.Tidy, suggesting ergot as a probable cause, but admitting that the empty bladder of Mason was not in accordance with the usual symptoms of ergot poisoning. One of the medical men subsequently pointed out that the extremely rapid pulse of the poisoned persons was opposed to the usual effects of ergot. I examined the pudding under the microscope for ergot, but could find none. Nor had it any violet tint.Nor did the flour of which the bread supplied to the eating house was said to have been made contain any detectable trace of ergot when examined microscopically and chemically. The rye-mcal of the same baker contained only a doubtful trace of ergot. On treating No. 1 pudding with cold solution of soda an unmistakable smell of herrings was observed. After a time the mixture acquired il brilliant lake-red colour, which increased in intensity and was very permanent.The colour was very striking and characteristic, but not of the same shade as the violet-red I obtaiued from a bread pudding t o which I had purposely added ergot. No. 2 pudding gave the same reactions as No. 1, but far less distinctly. The lake-red colour with soda was producible throughout the mass of the pudding, and not merely on the surface.Portions of the pudding which had become visibly mouldy did not give the lake-red reaction, nor did a bread pudding prepared from pure materials for the purpose of comparison give any ergoto’id reaction. Under the microscope, abundance of myceliwn threads and other structures were observable. From these results it appears that the red colour and trimethylamine odour observed on treating ergot with an alkali are not peculiar to that fungus, as has been supposed hitherto, but are obtainable from other sources.That the substance producing these reactions is a fungus there could be little doubt, and it is probable that it contains the same poisonous principle as ergot. I n the present unsatisfactory state of the chemistry of ergot I thought it useless to attempt to isolate or identify the active principle.*The best way of applying Fre~eniu~’ process to animal matters is to distil the substance with pure fuming hydrochloric acid, collecting the distillate in a little water. Arsenic, and probahly antimony, will pas3 over, and can readily be detected in the distillate.The residue in the flask or retort is diluted with hat water, and snbmittcd to the action of the gas given off on treating chlorate of potassium with strong hydrochloric acid. By proceeding in this manner, all the oxidising effect of chlorine peroxide is obtained without the objectionable introduction of solid matters. In this process, the animal matters are completely destroyed, and the poison dissolved without possibility of loss, and without the introduction of any foreign matter but compounds of chlorine.THE ANALYST.357 I beliere I have now obtained absolute proof that il body giving the ergoto’id reactions with soda is really a poisonous fungus, for I have reproduced it on a slice of bread soaked i n milk and sugar and inoculated at one end with KO.1 pudding. In forty-eight hours the lake-red reaction with Eoda was obtainable from portions of the bread several inches removed from the pudding, and this distance was increased as time went on. Finally a portion of the bread far removed from the pudding produced violent purging on a mouse which was fed with it. This last experiment was made subsequently t o the verdict of the jury, which was that the deceased persons ‘( Died from eating unwholesome pudding, but how and by what means such pudding became unwholesome there is no sufkient evidence to show.” Evergone connected with the case whose opinion could be considered of value felt convinced that the cause of the disaster was the condition of the bread, but after the verdict I learnt that some of the jury could not conceive that a (‘ mould ” invisible to ordinary observation could be poiEonous, and the cook did not notice any mould on the bread of which she made the pudding ! I may add that the poisonous pudding had no sign of crust on it, but was ‘ I sloppy,” and of the consistency of bread and milk.The oven in which it was baked was a notoriously slow one. The separate lumps of bread mere clearly distinguishable, and the heat had not been sufficient to burst, or in many cases to alter, the starch corpuscles. The presence of a fungus, poisonous at ,z particular stage of its growth, would account for the pudding poisoning the original partakers, and yet being inert when tried on the puppy ten days afterwards.It might still be detectable by chemical reactions (like old ergot) and be capable of reproduction, as it seems to have been in the slice of bread, There was no suspicion of malice on the part of anyone, or even of a trick having been played, and Thresh himself attributes the poisonous effects simply t o ‘( sour food.” On searching for recorded cases of poisoning by mouldy bread (as distinguished from ergotized bread) I found several instances in which very similar effects had been observed. In a case described in Von Boeck’s new work on poisons, three persons were violently ill, and one, a child of a few years of age, died.NOTE ON A CURIOUS CASE OF DANGEROUS MILK. BY DB. JOHN MUTER, F.C.S. I HAVE been lately consulted by a gentleman, whose family suffered an attack of sickness and purging after partaking of the usual morning’s milk, with the view of, if possible, tracing the cause of the attack.The quantity saved was unfortunately very small, and was delivered t o me in the can in which it came, but a larger amount of the same milk, which had been boiled, was also submitted. The latter enabled me to make a careful search for poisons, but with a negative result, and (after allowing for the probable concentration of the milk by boiling) showed that little or no water had been added.On opening the can, I was at once struck by the strikingly foul smell which emanated from it, and on putting the milk under the microscope, although T found no pus, casts, blood or other appearances indicating disease, I noticed some bodies which appeared to be fungoid cells.1 then turned my attention to the can, and found that the smell, although partly communicated to the milk, really existed chiefly in that vessel. On partially washing358 THE ANALYST. the con I obtained decided appearances of fungoid growths and some bacteria adhering to the joints, which mere entirely filled by a solid mass of decomposing milk constituents. I a t once concluded that the milk had heen rendered poisonous by being placed i n this dirty can, which had quickly communicated its septic properties to the contents ; and I reported accordingly. This shows that a poison, probably of a fungoid nature, can form in milk vessels when they have had the milk hardening in them, and are only given a slight perfunctory rinse.Our publicans take a pride in the perfect brightness of their can8 both inside and out, and why should not our milkmen also avail themselves of a little sand and Unfortunately the milk can is too often a dull, dirty, and unscrubbed receptacle, capable of conveying, as above shown, a dangerous fermentive poison. I, for one, will insist on having my milk in brightly-scrubbed cans (both outside and inside), and I advise the public to do likewise, or change their purveyor. I intend trying t o obtain some more of the curious growth I saw, and hope to be able to describe it more minutely at a future date. I ought t o say that the odour of the can was not at all that of simply stale milk, but something indescribably putrid and offensive. elbow grease.”